


Bright Star

by sleeponrooftops



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-11
Updated: 2010-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:58:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeponrooftops/pseuds/sleeponrooftops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days — three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>- John Keats</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bright Star

James Potter was everything every girl had every dreamed of.  He was beautifully handsome with crazy black hair that never failed to look like he’d just gotten out of bed, though it always happened to look good that way.  He had sparkling hazel eyes that were more readable than any of his facial features, and I loved to watch the way they lit up when he smiled.  He had an angled face, attractively so, and he was continually clean-shaven, which only made his lovely face look all that more enticing.

 

And, for some reason, this man was in love with me, simple redheaded Lily Evans, nothing special except for emerald eyes and a freckle-dotted nose.  I couldn’t understand it; all I knew was that I cherished it.

 

It was March twelfth when I first listened to James’ pleas.  He’d been after me, desperate for a date, a kiss, a heart, for five and half years now, quite close to six.  It was on that day, however, two months since his last attempt, that he startled me with his beauty.

 

“I had such a dream last night,” a voice whispered next to my ear, and a shiver ran down my spine as I felt a pair of soft, ghosting lips touch my earlobe.

 

I was against a tree, a tall, lovely tree.  It was just beginning to bud again after the winter, and so the leaves were not quite bare anymore.  I’d been here for a few hours, just enjoying the glorious sun and the soft, soft grass.  I had a book and a journal in front of me, the book that of the Muggle’s Shakespeare, and the journal mine for writing.

 

“I was floating above the trees,” the voice continued, and I closed my eyes, sighing, “with my lips connected to those of a beautiful figure, for what seemed like an age.”

 

It paused, and I yearned for more, wished for it so badly.  Delicate fingers caressed my cheek, and I leaned into the touch, mesmerized.

 

“Flowery treetops,” it went on, “sprung up beneath us and we rested on them with the lightness of a cloud.”

 

And there was a moment then.  I held my breath, waiting, and then the hand retreated, the lips touched my cheek, and the voice was no more.  I opened my eyes just to see a tall figure walking away, and my breath caught as I recognized his hair, his walk, _him_.

 

“James Potter!” I yelled.

 

He didn’t turn, merely kept walking, and I watched in shock as he ascended the castle steps and disappeared away.  It wasn’t until I grumpily sulked into the library, took a seat with my book (it had grown too chilly and dark outside), and lifted my eyes that I saw him.

 

“You!” I exclaimed a little too loudly, and he looked up, arching an eyebrow, “That was you today, by the tree,” I accused, getting up and storming over to him, “You said those things to me, about your dream and the tree and,” I stopped, touching my lips.

 

“I do apologize, I have gone blank,” he whispered, never taking his eyes from me.

 

He motioned toward the seat across from him, and I warily took it.  He stared at me for a long time, a stare that scared me before he smiled to himself and looked down at his hands.  I watched as he bit his lip, sighed, and pushed a piece of paper over to me.  A poem sat on the parchment, a _poem_ that James Potter had written for me, for Lily Evans.

 

_Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—_

_Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night_

_And watching, with eternal lids apart,_

_Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,_

_The movie waters at their priestlike task_

_Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,_

_Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask_

_Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—_

_No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,_

_Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,_

_To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,_

_Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,_

_Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,_

_And so live ever—or else swoon to death_

I was agape when I finished.  _James Potter_.  This didn’t seem right in my head, didn’t seem like something he would do.  James Potter didn’t love like this.  He flirted, sure, and he was quite the one to flaunt his good looks, but _this_ , this was a James Potter I couldn’t believe existed.

 

“You wrote this?” I had to confirm, and, when he nodded, still smiling, I collapsed against my chair, still holding the parchment.

 

“You’re lying,” I continued after a moment, shaking my head, “You couldn’t possibly.”

 

And then, as if maybe it was true, I straightened, looking right at him, “Why me?”

 

“For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright; a fairer word than fair.”

 

I couldn’t speak.

 

That day, James and I walked through the castle, not touching, just talking, and he astounded me endlessly, whispering words of beauty to me, reciting things he’d written for me, telling me the most wondrous stories.  It was that day in March that I finally fell for James Potter, finally realized I had been ignoring him for so long.

 

And so we dated.  Throughout the end of my sixth year, that summer, all the way through my seventh year, and then he proposed.  I remember the end of my sixth year, well, though, because it was the day I realized that I _loved_ him, that I always would love him.  I’ll always hear his words echoing in my heart, and I think of them now when, four hours before my wedding to _the_ James Potter.

 

“Write the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been.”

 

“James,” I’d started to cry, but he’d simply shushed me with a kiss, pulled me close, and bid me goodbye.

 

We met over the summer frequently, but we still wrote those soft words, delicate little things to one another that I keep locked away in a small chest, tucked safely under his Quidditch uniform.  One of them, one of the last ones, in August, had me curled up in my bed, crying into my pillow.  We hadn’t seen each other since the end of June when he wrote the third day in August, and it broke my heart to see the teardrops on the paper, the shaky handwriting.  I cried because he cried, and I’d never before felt more loved.

 

_I am miserable that you are not with me: or rather breathe in the dull sort of patience that cannot be called life.  I never knew before, what such a love as you have made me feel, was; I did not believe in it; my Fancy was afraid of it, lest it should burn me up.  But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire it will not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures._

And when James asked me to marry him on May twenty-fifth, I accepted in a heartbeat, those words bouncing off the walls of my brain.  I _knew_ I loved him, knew it with every fiber of my being.  And, as I dress today in the most beautiful gown, and as I walk down a carpet of red to stand before my husband-to-be, I know, with all my heart, that James and I are meant to be, that we have an eternal love that can never be conquered, that, to be his, is the most perfect thing I could ever ask for.

 

“James, why do you love me?”

 

I remember asking him that question exactly seven hours before he proposed to me.  I remember it because it had taken him a long time to answer.  We were lying together outside, completely innocent, and my head lay on his chest, his fingers trailing through my hair ever so slowly and delicately.  He sighed onto my face, and I closed my eyes, listening to the beat of his heart against my ear.  I wanted to be one with him, to never leave this moment, to always be wrapped in his arms, to always feel so irrevocably loved.

 

“Because I want to be close enough to you to hear your every breath,” he finally whispered, and his hand stopped moving, “I feel anxious if I miss a day.  The very air I breathe empty of you is unhealthy.”

 

And I never asked him again.  I didn’t need to.  I knew, _knew_ that James loved me, and, for every moment then and after, the love I felt for him filled me with every breath I took, with every flutter of my heart, with every dream of him.

 

I stepped in front of the doors, smiling as my father came to my side, took my arm, and the doors were opened.  The rest of my life lay before me, in joy and in love.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All dialogue and things written by James are taken from Bright Star, the movie. They are the words of John Keats, for I feel he writes more beautifully of love than anyone could possibly. I hope this didn’t take away from the overall story, for I feel that it certainly added an even deeper element of adoration. Also, the poem that he “writes” for Lily is my favorite of Keats’, and it was written as an expression of love to the only true love he ever had.


End file.
